AdInsight - Sysinternals | Microsoft Learn

Title: Insight for Active Directory (ADInsight) v1.2 Author: Mark Russinovich Published: October 26, 2015 Last updated: 03/23/2021

Summary

• Purpose: ADInsight is a real-time LDAP monitoring and troubleshooting tool for Active Directory client applications. It helps diagnose issues involving Windows authentication, Exchange, DNS, and other AD-related client-server interactions.

• How it works: ADInsight injects a tracing DLL into target processes to intercept and interpret calls made to Wldap32.dll (the library behind LDAP and ADSI APIs). Because it traces client-side API calls (including those that do not send traffic over the network), it provides richer, higher-level diagnostic detail than network-only monitors.

• Permissions and scope: The tool can monitor any process into which its DLL can be loaded. It does not require administrative rights for user-level processes, but running it with administrative privileges allows monitoring of system processes and Windows services.

• Supported platforms: Client — Windows Vista and newer; Server — Windows Server 2008 and newer.

• Download / run:

  • Download: https://download.sysinternals.com/files/AdInsight.zip

  • Run from Sysinternals Live: https://live.sysinternals.com/ADInsight.exe

• Related utilities: AdRestore (for restoring deleted objects on Windows Server 2003 domains) and AD Explorer (an AD viewer/editor).

• Additional resources: Links to Microsoft training on troubleshooting Active Directory and the Microsoft Certified: Identity and Access Administrator Associate certification are provided on the original page.

If you’d like, I can produce a brief how-to for using ADInsight (steps to start tracing a process, filter results, or interpret common LDAP operations), or extract the download and system requirements into a quick reference block. Which would you prefer?